


Flaky and Tender

by patchworkgirl



Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: Cooking lesson, Fluff, Light Angst, M/M, Pie
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-13
Updated: 2017-08-13
Packaged: 2018-12-14 19:12:54
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,766
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11789625
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/patchworkgirl/pseuds/patchworkgirl
Summary: Taako is passionate about pie, Kravitz puts up with it because it's cute. And who doesn't like pie. Plotless fluff. I just do Taakitz dates now, I guess.





	Flaky and Tender

“So I'm all, the fuck are you doing, fuckwit, you're just asking for trouble if you sweeten piecrust, trust the crust. _Trust the crust_.” Taako's mage hand plucked glistening sweet potatoes from the boiling water and slipped them free of their skins with a spindly-fingered elegance that matched the real ones, but required neither burning the hell out of his fingertips nor waiting like a chump. Kravitz had to admit it was pretty clever, though when his boyfriend got all foodie he usually spent the time nodding and smiling. He still found today's plan a little mystifying, but Taako didn't really require audience participation in his monologues. “It also involved shortening. We couldn't be further from flaky _or_ tender. Are we savages?”

“And... that's why you're boycotting the Bureau Canteen?” Just to show he was paying attention.

“That and there was an incident involving fantasy instant coffee. They thought I wouldn't notice, but I did.” Anyone else would have said _we_ , or at least that's what they'd have meant. Taako truly believed any inconvenience was a malicious slight against himself and anyone else's suffering was simple collateral damage. Kravitz chose not to examine what he found so endearing about that. “Fucking call it a canteen again. That's adorable.”

“Is there something else I'm supposed to call it?”

“Remind me, which of your accents is fake?” He winked around a bundle of sage leaves, posing and pouting and demanding attention. Kravitz was happy to give it in a moment of silence admiration and brushing one of many defiant curls out of Taako's face, sparing himself having to explain that he was pretty sure his “real” accent didn't exist anymore. He hadn't been alive for a very long time, even allowing for the fact that he was talking to an elf.

“Anydangway.” Taako made a very good appearance of ignoring the little caress, and Kravitz just barely knew him well enough to catch the flustered edge to his canary-that-ate-the-cat smirk. “Tiny pies. The facial hair that walks like a man and Fun-size shouldn't be back for hours, so the way I figure, what they don't know can't hurt them.”

“I don't know if I've ever had sweet potato pie.” He was actually pretty sure he had, but no particularly strong impressions came to mind, and he might as well flatter a bit while he had the chance. Taako could always stand a little support for the house of cards that was his towering, brittle ego.

“Sad, but irrelevant. This one's a Taako original.” He tossed his bouquet of sage absently over his shoulder and a slight pop accompanied the burst of prestidigitation that abruptly shredded the herb, sending the little specks to fall over the peeled potatoes like green snow on orange earth and suffusing the room with the herb's sharp, bitter smell. A lot of effort into presentation, and even more effort into seeming effortless. Even for Taako, this was a goddamn performance, especially when it was just the two of them. He always had his affectations and his walls, but this was odd, and not altogether comfortable. The shimmering mage hand was cubing a block of sharp-smelling cheese in the air now and Taako refused to look at it, assuming the air of one calmly walking away from an explosion. Which didn't usually end well for mortals.

Kravitz made a rather abrupt decision, pushing himself to his feet from the kitchen table. “Can I help?”

He hadn't expected that, at least. For a moment Kravitz was sure Taako was going to shut him down, but after an entirely too weighty pause, he nodded and put a spoon in Kravitz's hand with all the ceremony that'd go into a knighting. “Mix up the filling. I'mma deal with this butter situation.”

Kravitz swirled the spoon through the squishy stuff, watching potato and cheese swirl together and trying not to feel upstaged by the spectral hand delicately adding salt that glittered briefly before it disappeared into the glop. “So, um, Taako original?”

“It's so skullfucking amazing, Babe,” Taako said chirpily, swirling his fingers over a block of butter and slowly suffusing it with sorcerous cold. He was not an evocationist and his control wasn't perfect. Odd swirls of frost were forming in an uneven radius around the dish. Kravitz opted not to comment. “I kinda prefer squash, but they take forever to cook, and the salty and sweet really work together. You get this great umami thing with the sage, it's, mm, might be a personal best. But only because I understand pie crust, unlike some human prolapses I could name.”

“Ew.” Kravitz shook his head fondly. “You always use this much magic when you cook?”

Taako's smile froze, took on that razor edge you never, never wanted it to have. “No.”

“Um.” He'd stepped in it and he had no idea what it was. “I was just--” Before he could even decide where that inanity was going, a shower of red and gold sparks rose into the air above Taako's head, outlining the words _We're Not Fucking Talking About It._ Kravitz bit his lip and subsided, but he hadn't done anything wrong. If he was just here to be Taako's admiring audience and put his foot in his mouth, well, maybe he'd better remember some paperwork and head out before he started to get annoyed. Handling Taako like he was made of spun glass was usually a pleasant exercise, but sometimes the pretty points got stabby, and he didn't feel like putting up with that. “What's special about pie crust?”

And just like that, thaw. It was easy to just explain that flighty elves were mercurial and he kind of liked it, but Kravitz didn't think that was the whole truth. He'd managed to say something Taako wanted to hear. Finally. It might be frustrating that the only guidance he received was trial and error, but there were gears spinning even if he didn't see how they worked. “People make it too complicated, that's what. Every Johnny Shit-for-brains figures, hey, pie's a dessert, it's gotta be sweet, or fuck me, pie's delicious! Delicious things are complicated! Nope, those people are morons. It's all in the technique, not the ingredients.” He held up the frigid butter dish between them. “Guess what we do with this?” He grinned fiendishly, but it was warm. Real. Still a little dangerous, sure, but the right kind.

Kravitz bent down and kissed the end of his nose. Taako was silent for a whole two heartbeats, the dark, sharp eyes widening, and the reaper had to be satisfied with that brief moment. “Nope, guess again! Wrong. Get the cheese grater.”

“The... what?”

“The rectangular thingy—Oh, hold this.” He chose one among many fairly mysterious implements. “Isn't she gorgeous. Bought this off a one-eyed crone at a crossroads at midnight.”

“Bought?”

“Bought, stole, I was better at curses than her, deal with it.”

“So... you grate cheese with this?” Kravitz was a bit at sea, but that happened a lot. He was getting good at just rolling with these punches.

“I mean, yeah, you can, I'm exploring those possibilities. But. The most amazing shortcut. Cubing butter is so limiting, but grating chilled butter...” He whirled suddenly from manic grin to pout. “Only tricky part is humidity and temperature are a lot fussier if you... Wait.” He stopped dead, then raised his eyes to Kravitz's in a way that shone through his long lashes in a very distracting fashion. “You... negative body heat... _Yes._ ”

“Yes?” A little worried, yeah. But also, wow, he loved this view.

“You, my man, were born for pie crusts. Died, maybe? Whatever process that is. For grim reaping. Here.” In a few seconds of bustle, Kravitz found himself aimed at counter and mixing bowl, the lingering mage hand looking a bit dusty over the flour in the bowl and holding a battered measuring cup at the ready. He expected further instructions, but instead Taako stepped up behind Kravitz, flush against him, cheek pressed between the reaper's shoulder blades, and covered both craggy, solid hands with his spindly ones. It should have been incredibly distracting, but Kravitz found himself wanting nothing in any world but to follow Taako's wild enthusiasms and see where the ride took him. Cuddling was good. Sexy cuddling was better. But hearing Taako love something, the sincere warmth in his voice and the skill in his hands as he walked Kravitz through the fussy little process, that was something more. He'd found somewhere there was no performance, no wall, just him and Taako and several cups of flour. It wasn't like touching was new for them, but it felt so much more intimate this way, even though it was focused on getting Kravitz's icy hands through the silky dough, rubbing Taako's narrow, straining shoulders as he rolled the crust out with self-indulgent whines about how hard it was, following him from an inch behind with salt and pepper and oil as they filled dozens of tiny pasties.

Taako sat on his lap at the table while they waited out the baking time, nibbling on the bits of scrap crust rolled in sugar and spice and definitely draping his braid over Kravitz's shoulder on purpose. He was the picture of perfect contentment. “How'd the Taako original come to be?” Kravitz asked absently, swirling his thumb slowly over a smudge of flour on the elf's cheek.

“I just did a lot of pies, back in the day. Crust goes together quick, and if you're not trying to impress anybody you can just kinda roll it up in any shape and toss it in the oven. Packs better than sandwiches.” He stopped and kissed Kravitz quickly. Cinnamon flavored. “Doesn't matter what you've got. Put it in a fucking crust, it's a goddamn pie. I happened on this combination within the last year, but there've been lots. Keeps everyone fed.” He was silent for a moment. Oddly silent, not the hard, almost-angry kind but a sort of... absence. Taako moments. Kravitz had already seen a few, times he mentioned someone who wasn't there, looked for someone at his own eye level who didn't seem to exist. Without having any reason to suspect a more than mundane tragedy, he hadn't even thought about prying. “Or just all the pie for me. Best system, but I'll let you and your magic butter chill preserving hands have one or two.”

“I feel like I should make a magic hands joke here—”

“Well why the shit didn't you? Do I have to do everything around here?”

 


End file.
